War Of Attrition Part I
by Needle in the eye
Summary: The first part of War of Attrition. Garrus and his best friend Lucius think they are on a roll. Until, that is, they are sent to explore a research base on the far-flung planet Venvax. As they near the surface, Garrus wonders: what could go wrong?


War of Attrition

I

The Venvax Incident

The shaking, enclosed space inside the drop pod was doing Garrus' claustrophobia no favours, but he hid the emotions as he held on tightly to the metal rod dividing his and Lucius' seats, looking around at the other marines in the veteran squad.

"Knights!" he called over the radio, "Thirty seconds!" Glancing out of his viewport, he could see the surface of Venvax coming closer and closer. The soil was carpeted in what Garrus assumed was grass. The briefing had clearly stated that Venvax's central plain held little else.

"Hey, Garrus," Lucius said from beside him, "You afraid?" Inside his helmet, Garrus grinned.

"What, you think I was appointed as Third Company Captain just so I could freak out on the first mission?" He couldn't see Lucius' expression through his helmet, but he knew him well enough to imagine.

"Just trying to make conversation," Lucius said gruffly. "I mean, if I'd wanted an argument I'd have picked a better time." Garrus shrugged.

"Knowing you, I wouldn't bet on it." Lucius was about to respond when the drop pod jolted sharply, throwing them off balance and causing Garrus to drop the ten credits he was holding in case Lucius really had wanted to bet on it. It was a sharp, unwanted pull back to the real world.

"How long do we have?" Lucius said, over the roar of the air rushing through the now-decompressed pod.

"Ten seconds," Garrus responded. "Knights! Ready your weapons!" The low hum of power swords and the click-clack of bolters filled the tiny space. Garrus opened his personal weapon locker and pulled out the chainsword there. He revved the motor, glancing at his timepiece. They had just over five seconds.

He locked his pure white armour, glancing down at the ornate, engraved chalice symbol on his breastplate, and sat back in his seat, breathing deeply. Suddenly, the pod slammed hard into the lower atmosphere, and, as one, the occupants were slammed into their headrests.

Three seconds later, the pod stopped entirely, shaking Garrus' bones and grating his armour plates together. He unlocked his seatbelt, got up, and pushed hard on the door activation handle.

The door opened a centimetre, and then stopped.

The only sound was of Lucius swearing copiously.

* * *

"Great," Lucius said, sarcastically. "Now what?"

"Maybe we could blow the door," a marine from Garrus' squad suggested, ignoring Lucius' comment.

"No, it could blow the entire pod," Garrus mused. Lucius smiled.

"We _could _use a flamer." Garrus nodded in response. He turned to his old friend.

"Lucius, you may've just got us out of here. Marines! Get a flamer unit in here and torch this door! Do it!" He turned away. Behind him, Lucius smirked. Garrus walked over to the door. As a second thought, he turned back to his friend. "Lucius, get us a radio link to the _Jerusalem_." As Lucius opened up a vox channel, he accepted a flamer from one of his devastator marines.

He aimed it at the door, and sprayed the plasteel with a long, wide-burst spout of liquid promethium. As it began to melt, he turned back to his squad. "Visors up! Helmet filters on!" As one, the blacked-out visors covered the squad's eyes, and their suits simultaneously shifted, blocking out the fumes.

The door slowly disintegrated into a small puddle of molten plasteel, which quickly hardened and set. Lucius, who by now had got up, took it in his left hand and threw it, frisbee-style, into the smoke billowing through the pod. Garrus advanced through the newly-created opening, finding himself not surrounded by grass as the briefing had promised, but in the middle of a jungle.

He motioned for the rest of the squad to follow as he drenched the undergrowth ahead with liquid fire, creating a small clearing which he advanced to the centre of. The rest of the squad joined him, and Lucius led his out too.

"Garrus," he said. "The _Jerusalem_'s not responding. I'll send my squad out to clear some more of these trees, shall I?" Garrus nodded his approval as he turned back to the pod. It was obvious now that it had come to rest lying against a tree, and that had blocked the door. Of the unfortunate tree, only a scorched black hole and some twisted roots remained.

He walked back to the centre of the clearing, activating the built-in light dampeners in his helmet as Lucius began to clear some more of the trees, along with several other marines. The promethium burnt at eight hundred degrees, and the squad made fast progress.

As they moved off into the treeline, Garrus turned back to his own men.

"Status report," he ordered.

"Sir." One of the marines saluted, and pulled a data-slate from a utility hatch in his backpack. "We have come down on Venvax's central plain. Judging by the satellite imagery we missed our target by about a hundred yards. The situation looks bad. We appear to be in the middle of some kind of jungle, but we were meant to come down on grass." Garrus motioned with his hand for the marine to continue.

"All other units also appear to have landed successfully, but most have missed their targets. We have received a message from Master Lorgar setting an RV about three clicks to the east." Garrus frowned inside his helmet.

"The White Knight? Our chapter master?"

"Indeed," the marine said, nodding. "What are our orders?" Garrus flicked his radio open.

"Lucius!" he barked. "Head due east!"

"Roger, will do," the reply came. Garrus signalled for the squad to move out, following the gently smouldering path left by Lucius' squad.

* * *

They had stopped for a while in a clearing created by the flamers. According to their GPS, it was very near the agreed RV. Garrus looked around at the densely-packed trees.

"This would be a great place to play cricket," Lucius remarked.

"Not for you," Garrus replied. "You're rubbish at cricket." Suddenly, he sensed a presence in the trees.

"Are you ok?" Lucius asked.

"Something's not right here," Garrus said quietly into the radio. Across from him, Lucius nodded.

"It's too quiet," he agreed. "There should at least be some birds or something." Garrus walked over to the nearest edge of the clearing and looked away into the jungle. Suddenly, a movement caught his eye. Something was out there, obscured by the trees.

"Lucius," he whispered. "Contact north."

"And west," the answer came. Garrus opened a wide channel.

"Marines: fan out and hold position. We have contacts in the trees. I repeat: contact north to west." Around him, the two squads moved into position. He turned back to the treeline. There were now several shapes out there. "Brassus," he said. Next to him, a marine holding a long, thin sniper rifle nodded and approached.

"Sir?" he asked. Garrus pointed into the trees.

"I want you to scope the area. A clean sweep. Tell me what you see." Brassus knelt and rested his long, master-crafted weapon on his armoured knee. He swept it round from north to west, then back again. He shook his head.

"There are things out there . . . metal. Robots." Garrus swore.

"AI?" he asked. Brassus nodded grimly. Garrus grabbed the radio.

"All callsigns, contacts are AI, repeat, contacts are AI." He turned back to Brassus. "How long do we have?"

"Well . . ." Brassus rubbed the plasteel chin on his helmet. "At their rate of movement, I'd say . . . three minutes before they have range on us." Garrus acknowledged his comment and quickly spoke into the radio.

"Lucius?"

"Working ahead, friend. Looks like we're facing Necrons." Garrus frowned.

"Never heard of them."

"Never will, either. The file's top secret. Some kind of shady robotic AI-based organism. Apparently responsible for the Martian incident." Garrus gasped; everyone hed heard of the stealth assault on Mars. It had been hushed up, but a man from his squad had been on the planet at the time. He turned back to Brassus.

"I need your scope," he ordered. Brassus carefully removed the scope from his prized rifle and handed it to Garrus, who raised it to his visor. The shadows began to take form before his eyes; they were tall, thin robots that looked for all the world like skeletons, except with green, glowing eyes. He gave orders to the squad.

"Marines, contacts are metal. Melta weapons and las weapons are recommended. Hit them in the chest; it looks to be their power source." Around him, the marines nodded and switched weapons. "On my signal, fire." He watched as his men cocked and readied their guns, the barrels of the melta weapons slowly revolving as they warmed up.

"Garrus," Lucius said. "Got some more on the Necrons. It appears they can reassemble themselves once they die. You have to take out their power cores." Garrus smiled.

"Good thing we have melta weapons." He looked back at the shadows. "Brassus: distance estimate." He handed the scope back to Brassus as the sniper held up three fingers. "Three hundred metres? We're in range," He realised. He opened a wide channel. "White Knights!" he cried. "Fire at will!"

* * *

The clearing erupted in a flurry of blue light as ten melta weapons simultaneously discharged, sending several of the shadows flying, burning blue holes in their chests. In response, the shadows raised their weapons and sent lances of green light flying at the Knights. Several men stumbled; one of the shots clipped Garrus' left shoulder and spun him round, but no-one fell to the fire. It seemed that the strange, green las was unable to pierce the marines' armour.

Down on one knee, Brassus had put his rifle on full power and put a shot through the eye of one of the Necrons, which, headless, dropped soundlessly to the ground. But more and more of the sinister, relentless robots were appearing out of the trees and soon the marines found themselves killing slower than they had to; the robots were coming closer and closer.

Still not a single man had been wounded; the green las was almost harmless. But Garrus, easy as the fight was, felt uncomfortable; maybe it was something to do with the fact that the Necrons advanced silently; even their weapons discharged with no noise whatsoever. No matter how many they killed, their opponents just kept coming.

So distracted was Garrus by this that he did not noticed the lance of bright green light headed for his chest until it hit him, knocking him off his feet and slamming him hard into the ground. He looked down to see a small hole in his breastplate, and a wound on the skin underneath. He quickly got to his knees and waited for his advanced metabolism to close up the gash so he could be on with the fighting, but nothing happened.

Indeed, the wound almost looked like it was growing, eating through the flesh of his chest. He got to his feet, struggling, to see another two marines suffering from similar afflictions; one was staggering, a portion of his helmet, and the head beneath, eaten away by the strange green las, the other lying on the ground as the poison gradually dissolved his leg.

"Lucius," Garrus cried, his voice cracking with the pain. "Get me research on the Necron weaponry." As Lucius nodded in response, Garrus knelt and locked his armour, ignoring the pain in his chest, as he continued firing with his meltagun.

"Garrus!" the radio crackled. "Please tell me they didn't hit you?" Sweat was pouring down Garrus' face and he felt his second heart begin to beat faster and faster as he answered.

"Afraid so, old friend. What can I do?" Lucius swore copiously.

"Not much. The Necrons use something called gauss weaponry; it slowly dissolves you." Garrus, still firing, flinched with fresh waves of pain.

"Is there anything I can do to stop it?" He ducked as shots whipped through the air around him; he now counted five men at least writhing in pain.

"Um . . ." the radio buzzed. "Sorry about that . . . er," he saw Lucius, easy to make out by his billowing red cape, ducking and weaving through the storm of shots. "You might want a medic. I think there is an antidote." Garrus stumbled; his vision was beginning to fade.

"Brassus!" he called.

"Sir?"

"Get over here!" He grimaced inside his helmet as Brassus, head low, ran over to him. "You have medical training, right?" Brassus nodded. "Do you carry antidotes?" Again, Brassus nodded. Garrus showed him the wound. "I need an antidote for gauss!" Brassus fumbled with his belt, on which was a row of vials, each a different colour and decorated with hand-written labels.

"I can . . ." Brassus said, his hands shaking. "I can't see well." Garrus looked up; Brassus' helmet visor was misted up. "I need to take my helmet off." He reached for the clasp.

"Brassus! No! Don't expose your skin!" But Brassus couldn't hear him over the roar of the battle around them. He removed his helmet and looked down at his belt. Suddenly, there was a flash of green light, and Brassus' head disintegrated, the body, jerking violently, falling to the ground in a spray of hot red blood.

Garrus cursed and crawled over to the body. He dragged himself upwards, until he was practically draped over the corpse. His fingers slipped on the blood as he struggled to find the vial. Around him, marines were falling left, right, and centre.

"Lucius!" he called. "Get over here!" He continued to search. Finally, he came across a vial simply labelled 'gauss.' He swiped it off the belt and poured half the contents into his mouth. Falling back onto the grass, he winced as the foul-tasting liquid washed through him. He looked down to see the wound had spread across his chest, exposing his ribs, and back up to see Lucius crouched beside him.

"We've lost half the men!" he cried. "We can't go on!" He ducked as a particularly close bolt of light swept past them. "They're almost in the clearing!" With shaking hands, Garrus handed him the vial.

"Give a drop of this to every casualty!" he called, his voice straining. Lucius nodded and stood to go. "Lucius!" Garrus said. His friend turned back to him.

"Yes?"

"Kill them all."

"I'll try." Garrus shook his head.

"Don't try. Do it." His friend nodded and set off across the clearing, weaving through the fire, and stumbling as the green las impacted off his armour. Feeling the last of his strength leave him, Garrus slumped back down onto the grass. He lay there, breathing slowly, feeling his heartbeat slowing, until the darkness took him.


End file.
